Brien Behling

Irish Nationalism: The Duality of Religion

The conflict over Ireland and its control has stretched back over a millennium, back to the

times of Nordic settlement around the coastland of Eire. Yet, only in the last five hundred years,

with the arrival of Protestant British settlers following the Reformation and the establishment of

the Tudor dynasty under Elizabeth the First, has the true question of Irish identity and

sovereignty emerged. The emergence of Irish Nationalism, of a descript cause for Irish unity and

self-governance can be seen under the guiding hand of Theobald Wolfe Tone, founder of the

United Irishmen. Yet, even this is an inaccurate statement, as it implies a singular form of Irish

nationalism, which is far from the case. Irish Nationalism, following the guidelines of common

European theorists, would hold that Irish Nationalism is the series of thought connected creating

a sovereign, Irish Republic on the Emerald Isle. Now, this definition would be acceptable only if

the conflict between British Crown and Ireland was one-dimensional, of which it is not. As the

conflict progressed between England and Ireland, two distinct groups emerged, Catholic and

Protestant.

It is these two groups that the true conflict of Ireland centers on – who will govern the

island. The Catholics, generally speaking, are the natives of Ireland and seek an established Irish

Republic, while the Protestants wish to remain in union with the British Parliament and continue

as British citizens. The term Irish Nationalism, then, is more aptly labeled Irish Republicanism

and applies only to those who identify as Irish, the Catholics. Yet, equally important is the foil

to Irish Nationalism is Ulster Unionism, the driving ideology of Protestants, who identify as

British, yet live in Ireland, that wants to remain part of the British Empire. It is this separation,

the creation of two objectively opposite ideologies, that fuels the entire conflict. Thus, in the

study of Irish Nationalism, two strands appear, Irish Republicanism and Ulster Unionism. For

the sake of this study, Irish Nationalism will be used interchangeably with Irish Republicanism,

both standing for the self-identified Irish and Catholic and live in Ireland, while Ulster Unionism

will stand for those who identify as British and Protestant, yet live in Ireland.

Overall, Irish Nationalism, of both the Irish-Catholic and the British-Protestant strands

stem from distinct histories of struggle and conflict, with one side opposing the other, constantly

seeking to undermine the position of the other and raise their own standard high. Since the

Protestant Reformation of England in the 16th

century, the influx of Protestant English settlers

into Ireland caused conflict with the natives and pre-Reformation British settlers, Catholics all.

From then on, a Protestant Ascendency governed the Emerald Isle, as Catholics watched Eire,

Ireland in their tongue, fall piece by piece to outsiders. Catholics lost their culture, stripped of

their rights, lands, and religion, in essence, their identity, that which defined them.

Simultaneously, the Protestants built their own identity, defining themselves on their own

terms, in the ways of their British monarch and root culture. It is in these identities, built out of

conflict, of persecution, of aggressive action and violent means, that the nationalisms of Ireland

erupt, forged in the fires of a struggle that stretches back centuries. It is these identities that fuel

the nationalistic conflict still experienced today, past down from generation through generation.

These identities, built from economic struggle, religious-based politics, and the biased education

of each community pour fuel on the fires and continue the Troubles to this day.

The identities of both the Irish Catholics and the Ulster Protestants hail from an economic

struggle, which is just a part of the larger conflict between the two traditions. Economic

prosperity, or lack thereof, has been a driving problem in Ireland, as the Catholics were stripped

of land and status after each defeat, while the Protestants gained after each victory. And when

the time of economic reform occurred, it was attacked, for it endangered the status quo, that

which the Unionists of Ulster knew and had brought for them much prosperity. Since the arrival

of the Ascendency, the island of Ireland was progressive controlled more and more by

Protestants, English and Scottish settlers, who through legal and forcible means, took Catholic

lands and drove them from the green pastures, breaking with the traditional Brehon Law of the

Gaelic tribes, which stripped the Irish of their land rights. i By the dawn of the 18

th century,

nearly eighty percent of Ireland was controlled by non-Irish.ii This drove the Irish to the worse

arable land on the isle, while Protestant settlers grew fat on the formerly Irish-owned fields.

This would continue for centuries and found one of the guiding principles of Irish nationalism.

At the time, the Irish peasantry was either living on poor, mountain land and practicing

subsistence farming or working as a tenet-farmer to a Protestant landlord. Yet, as tenet-farmers,

the Irish had little to no rights and were denied the rights granted to Protestant renters, namely

Ulster Custom, which allowed tenets to remain on the land, as long as rents were paid in full.

Protestants held this right, yet Catholic, by virtue of their Catholicism, were denied it and thusly

able to be evicted at mere notice or have their rents changed at a whim.iii

Protestants owned the

quality land and controlled who could live there, ensuring that any Catholic who did would pay

excessive rents and if the need arose, be thrown off the land in favor of a Protestant renter. This

would only be attained after years of passive and sometimes active, violent resistanceiv

with the

passage of Gladstone, Prime Minister of England’s, Land Act in 1870. It took some hundred

plus years before basic economic equality was achieved and that was in nominal terms only;

without a prominent voice in the justice system, as it were, Catholics were only legally entitled to

Ulster Custom on paper.

The economic hardships for Catholics can also be observed when examined through the

Ulster Protestant lens, who viewed any economic gain of the Irish as their loss. When the

question of Home Rule first arose in 1860, all that was requested was an Ireland Parliament to

govern domestic affairs, while still remaining within the British Empire and obeying the Crown

and Parliament. It would give the Irish a voice in setting tax and rent laws and institute

economic reform and bring about a more balanced relationship with London, who for long had

viewed Ireland as a colonial expansion of British power, using it and its Irish population to

produce goods for the Empire. Irish cattle and sheep were exported to England, while all

industrial goods were imported, as Ireland held none of her own. This created a highly

dependent relationship on England, one that the Irish wished to improve, through partial self-

governance. The “… colonial relationship was seen by Irish nationalists as unjust and

exploitative...”v Yet, for the Protestants of Ireland, this relationship was the driving factor that

filled their coffers with coin and had made their families fat with wealth. As each Home Rule

bill was purposed and defeated (this occurred on three separate occasions) Protestants became

increasingly fearful for their economic safety, especially by the Third Home Rule Bill of 1912.

Overlooking the threat of a Catholic Parliament in Dublin, which was morally reprehensible to

them, Home Rule was a “…threat, for it held that a Dublin parliament, dominated by the

agrarian interests of the south and west, would bring about the ruination of Ulster’s prosperity.”vi

Their fear was, in essence, the way of life established would be lost, as Belfast, capital of the

Unionists and rising star of the British Empire, with its industrial shipyards and growing textile

industry, which had helped ensure and cement the Protestant aristocracy as the ruling class of

Ireland. To say “…what Protestants of all ranks were preparing to fight for…was the

maintenance, in some form, of the threatened Protestant ascendancy in Ireland…” vii

is not far off

base; Protestants, in the face of Home Rule, closed ranks, rallied in their Unionist halls and

lodges, and prepared to fight for Protestant economic prosperity. Home Rule or any such non-

British direct rule, jeopardized the welfare of the Ulster community, thus, it only made sense to

protest, by whatever means necessary, a change in the status quo. A Dublin-based parliament,

staffed with a Catholic (Irish) majority, would invest in the vast agrarian complex of the south

and west, leaving the industrial north and its exclusive Protestantism, by the wayside to crumble

in neglect. The eventual solution, to appease the (super)majority Catholic south and the small,

but majority Protestant north, was partition; splitting the island in parts, one, to form its own

sovereign government and the other, to remain part of the United Kingdom.

Partition had the result of taking the Catholic-Protestant conflict and placing it in a

pressure cooker; following the divide, Protestants quickly moved to solidify their economic

power in the Ulster region, now dubbed Northern Ireland and in turn, block Catholics from

gaining any semblance of economic status, which would make them independent from the

Protestant Aristocracy. There was a “systematic discrimination”viii

to keep Catholics occupying

governmental jobs, as these brought political influence and power, but more troublingly, allowed

for a Catholic middle-class to emerge. Thus, it became de facto government policy to bar all

Catholics from governmental work. This would also extend to the heart of Ulster industry, the

shipyards, the primary employment source for Protestants in the north. Most importantly, this

discrimination would also rear its head in the police forces (Royal Irish Constabulary – RIC &

Royal Ulster Constabulary – RUC), as Catholics faced “…widespread intimidation or

hostility…”ix

when trying to enter law enforcement. Economically speaking, Protestants,

following their Ulster Unionist ideology, claimed a monopoly on the influential occupations in

the north and through that dominion, acted to ensure ascendency over the Catholics. Thus,

whenever Catholics attempted to seize economic concessions or, as was much more prevalent,

through paramilitary means, the Unionists were always able to effectively keep them down, often

through the very economic means the nationalists were protesting in the first place. Wealth is a

sign of status, power, and above all freedom, so economic liberty was long a contentious issue

between the Irish and the British. It only stands to reason that the Irish would seek to increase

their station, seeking a fair balance of economic power, while the Unionists sought to defend

their investments and retain their vast economic superiority and ascendency. In the end,

economics and wealth was treated as a zero-summon game, with a singular victor, who profited

at the loss of the opponent, which inspired violent action and counteraction, all which helped

create two distinct and opposing cultural identities.

Just as economic desires defined the identities of the Nationalists and Unionists, so did

the religion-based politics that dominated the government of Ireland. The conflict between

Catholic and Protestant, Nationalist and Unionists, spilled from economic into politics, as each

desired a government that represented them. As renowned international policy consultant Hans

Morgenthau stated, ‘…one nation – one state is thus the political postulate of nationalism…”x.

What this means, is that, the unified nation and state is the full representation of nationalism and

thus, Catholics and Protestants both sought a government that represented their respective

nationalism. The result is “…two ideologies, unionism and nationalism, [that] are diametrically

opposed…”xi

; one seeks to create an Irish government, sovereign of the British Crown, while the

other wishes to maintain the Union and continue in their alliance to Parliament in London. What

then occurs, are the two sides actively seeking to further their own rights, while viewing the

other as the enemy. The conflict became defined by the religious roles of those involved, until

politics and religion were in essence, one; “What divides Protestants and Catholics in Northern

Ireland is ideology; they disagree on who should govern them. Unionists reject and fear Irish

nationalism, while Nationalists reject union with Britain, which for them has always taken the

form of Protestant power.”xii

This vast divide is the most prevalent in post-partition, Northern

Ireland, where politics and religion become interchangeable; to be Catholic is to be Nationalist,

to be Protestant is to be Unionist. This becomes a reality with the establishment of Stormont, the

Parliament in Northern Ireland, which, as the newly elected Unionist Prime Minster, the Lord

Craigavon stated, “‘All I boast is that we are a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People’”xiii

.

This was a stark declaration that the government’s sole concern was the Protestant population of

Northern Ireland; the Catholics, for all purposes, were non-people and thus needed no

protections of the government. What then occurs, in no small ways, is the true establishment of a

split society; “In a short time the North’s Nationalists discovered they were second-class subjects

of the Crown.”xiv

Yet, even progressing backwards in time, to before partition, Catholics were still treated

as second-class citizens and received no voice or rights. For when the Home Rule Acts were

purposed and successively defeated by the Conservative Party in Parliament (London), the

nationalists had no legal voice, while Protestants had a vocal and powerful speaker in the visage

of Ben Carson. Carson, a hardnosed Protestant and ranking member of the Conservative Party,

vowed that in no ways would partition occur, if it meant cutting the north of Ireland from the

United Kingdom. He, along with many in the Conservative Party, declared they would arm

Protestants in the North and if need be, engaged in open warfare with the Crown, to preserve

their right to be loyal to the Crown. It is paradoxically in the adamant resistance to a government

they so wish to remain a part of.xv

The extremes Carson are seen as he oversaw the

establishment of the Ulster Volunteers, a paramilitary group dedicated to violently opposing

Home Rule, all while “[c]laiming to be ‘loyal subjects of his Gracious Majesty King George V’,

they nevertheless pledge[d] to use ‘all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present

conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland’ and to refuse to recognize the authority

of any such parliament.”xvi

. It is after understanding such harsh resistance, to the point of

violating the Constitution of England, we can understand how this hardline Protestant sentiment

carried forth into Partition and the establishment of an exclusive Protestant Parliament.

This passionate resistance proved violent insurrection could effectively trigger

government policy change, so in turn, Catholics, in watching their Protestant brethren bring the

gun into politics, did the same. As the preeminent Irish history, Dr. Eamon Phoenix says, “…by

blatantly challenging the authority of the sovereign parliament and by re-introducing the gun as

the final arbiter in Irish politics, ‘Carson rekindled the Fenian flame’”xvii

. Carson’s actions

returned violence to an already pressurized conflict, bringing the gun into religion and politics.

It then no surprise, that within a few short years of Carson and the Third Home Rule Act, that the

Irish Republican Brotherhood, a Catholic paramilitary group, struck hard and fast in the Easter

Rising of 1916, shocking the government in London. The Brotherhood, after seeing successive

failures of Home Rule sought something more ambitious, a full-fledged Irish Republic and to do

so, “…they calculated that an armed stand – however futile – would almost certainly provoke the

British into harsh reprisals; by their ‘martyrdom’, they might give their cause – an Irish Republic

instead of anaemic Home Rule – its elixir of life.”xviii

Thus, while the Rising culminated in

failure, it raised national awareness, drawing Catholics from the whole of Ireland to the

Republican cause, and did invoke British wraith.

The Easter Rising confirmed for much of England and certainly for the Protestants in

Ireland, something they had held for years; Irish Nationalism was Catholic and thus solely

focused on the defeat of Protestants.xix

It is with this idea that Protestants closed ranks and

delivered punishment for the leaders of the Rising. Executions poured forth from Dublin Castle,

a few every day, until all the leaders were slain. The intentions had been one of cruel

punishment, purposeful to deliver retribution, for the British, in London and Ireland were

shocked by the Rising; they felted betrayed, stabbed in the back.xx

It is in such a mind-state that

the Protestant government sought to “…teach the Irish a lesson, [but] they present[ed] a face of

barbarity rather than justice. Men who had been denounced and spat on became gallant

heroes”xxi

. The punishment for the Rising did the exact opposite the Protestants wanted, it create

a group of martyrs for the Republican cause, which enflamed the Catholics. It was in response to

the vast outrage following the executions and the resulting protests, the British Parliament would

pass the Partition Act of 1922. Partition would lead to an independent Irish Republic in the

south, while the north of Ireland, with its Protestant majority would remain in Union with the

British Empire. Yet tensions did not fade, for while the Republic flourished, the Catholics in the

North suffered beneath the heel of an angry and frightened Protestant majority, which only lead

to more violence.

Partition saw the creation of Northern Ireland, a Protestant-majority region that held a

significant population of Catholics. While peace was occurring in the South, the North saw the

outbreak of violence, as both the Catholics and the Protestants sought to ingrain their respective

identities, through targeted education to spread their specific perspective on the Irish Troubles.

This education was both formal and informal, some taught within the schools, focusing on the

history of the conflicts, often focusing on the numerous violent Catholic uprisings and the

equally bloody Protestant suppression of these revolts. Other lessons were taught through the

culture and literature of the day, as music, poems and stories told the tales of Irish Nationalism,

while the Unionists utilized Orange Parades to further their identities.

For the Irish, the Nationalist cause had much history to draw on, as the parents and

grandparents regaled their children with stories of the great heroes, who fought against the

cursed English invaders, with the purpose of inspiring the children to do much the same. The

poems “…praised the ‘swordsmen’ who harried the Ulster colonists, the Tories who harassed the

Cromwellians, the rapparees who waged guerrilla war on the Williamites”xxii

and with each

retelling, the message of the British, the Protestants, were the enemy was deeper ingrained, until

the only responsible option was violent insurrection. The message only grows stronger the more

exposure to culture and literature occurred, often encouraged by Catholic leaders, who oft quoted

the prominent nationalist poets.

Already the curse is upon her, 25

And strangers her valleys profane;

They come to divide, to dishonor,

And tyrants they long will remain.

But, onward! the green banner rearing,

Go, flesh every sword to the hilt; 30

On our side is Virtue and Erin,

On theirs is the Saxon and Guilt.

-Thomas More (1779-1852), from The Song of O’Ruark, Prince of Breffnixxiii

(Italics added)

It is poems such as this that declares honor and glory in combat against the invader, the

Saxon, who violates the green hills of Ireland. They spurn on violence, encourage and call for it,

to rid Erin – Ireland, of the enemy. Violence becomes an almost holy mandate, as seen in line

31, which lays claim to the idea of virtuous combat and appeals to the notions of Ireland as a

nation embodied, fighting alongside the young Irish lad as he attempts to drive the Saxon from

the shores. Likewise, these messages came in the form of stirring songs, the famous Irish folk

music so loved around the world. Many of these songs are a living history of Irish culture,

commemorating the great leaders of past revolts, the heroic events that together have created and

defined the Irish identity the world knows. One such song, the Foggy Dew, tells the story of the

Easter Rising, impeding in the minds of the Irish the memory of those who fought and dead in a

futile and ill matched effort at Irish independence. The sacrifice of the men and women, their

heroic death for freedom, becomes eternalized for Catholics, an epitome for how the Irish should

live, with lines such as “And the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless men, but

few/Who bore the fight that freedom's light might shine through the foggy dew”xxiv

. The Foggy

Dew, with its appeal to freedom and sacrifice, is just one song of memorialization amongst a

pantheon of Nationalism. Thus, as the Irish grow, they experience this consistent nationalistic

idea in their homes, on the street, in the corner shop or pub and it begins to define them, the final

sculpting of an Irish identity shaped in the fires of conflict and suffering. It is this cultural

education that puts history to shape and makes it real for the Irish, allowing them to embrace

their identity and maintain it for the next generation.

Just as the Irish Nationalists have their cultural education, the Ulster Unionists have their

own cultural education, shaped and crafted by their historical experience in Ireland. Ulster

history was preserved and protected by the Orange Order, a Protestant Organization focused on

the continuation of the Protestant regime in Ireland. The history they permeate for Unionist

community focuses on the violence and death Protestants suffered at the hands of Catholic and

“…reduces the complicated history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation to the

consolidation of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland.”xxv

The primary goal of the Orange Order

was to focus on the injustice of the Catholic presence and the massive benefits of being

Protestant in Ulster. In strict economic and political terms, being Protestant meant power, being

a member of the governing class of Ireland, which dictated the course of the island. Thus,

Protestant history focuses on the influence of the British Crown, which allowed for its Protestant

settlers to flourish and attacks any idea or event that diminishes Protestant power. As Catholics

glorified their past, Protestants were intent on maintaining it in their histories, as “…the unionists

rewriting of the grand narratives of British history… serves to slam shut the gates of history so

that unionists may continue to enjoy the privileges of the colonial past.”xxvi

For the most part,

Protestants history, as taught to the Unionists in Northern Ireland, disregards any positive

contribution by Catholics and only highlights the heyday of Protestant power in Ireland.

In addition to their written history, the most powerful reminder of Protestant history and

identity are the Orange Parades, annual marches that commemorate and honor the Siege of

Londonderry, during the Glorious Revolution in England. The siege, by Catholic King James’s

forces was eventually broken by the Protestant William of Orange and became forever the face

of Protestant victory in the face of Catholicism. Every year, the Protestants of Northern Ireland

take to the streets and march, flying the Orange colors and banners high, while playing the

Orange songs they so long practiced in their Orange halls and lodges. The parades have become

the utmost personification of Protestant identity; their ability to march vindicates the struggles

and victories of past Protestants and declares the unshakeable endurance of Protestant

Unionism.xxvii

Thus, as these Orange parades march through Protestant communities yearly, the

ideas of Protestantism, the identity that defines them, seeps into the minds of the people, unifying

them under the Orange banner.

In the end, it is these cultural educations that complete the creation of two distinct

identities of Irish Catholics and Ulster Unionists. Both sides grow from their historical

backgrounds, consuming the stories of economic hardship at the hand of the other and the ideas

of religious politics, as one sought to destroy the other and let the conflict define them. The

economic persecution of Catholics and political and religious suppression gave them reason to

draw on the heroic literature, to encourage violent action to overthrow the tyrant, while

Protestants, viewing their past prosperity and monopoly on power, only wish to preserve that

identity. Thus, when one side, after examining their history and culture, as taught by their

community, struck out against the injustices against their kind, they only gave the other side fuel

to reinforce their historical identity. When Catholics rose in revolt, massacring Protestants, it

only secured the Protestant perspective of being at war with nationalists, which caused them to

retaliate, killing Catholics, only to trigger the same response from the Catholic community. It

became a vicious cycle, as each action or occurrence strengthened the identity of the other, until

all that is left is the us-versus-them mentality, which only leads to more conflict and strife. It is

in this way, that over 400 years from the beginnings of the Troubles, that Catholics and

Protestants, Nationalist and Unionist, can still raise arms against each other.

i Michael Hurst, Parnell and Irish Nationalism (University of Toronto Press, Canada, 1968), 4. ii Sean Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology (Continuum, New York, 1981), 9.

iii Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology, 28.

iv Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology, 94.

v Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology, 86.

vi George Boyce, “Respectable Rebels: Ulster Unionists Resistance to the Third Home Rule Bill, 1912-14”, in

Conflicts In the North of Ireland, 1900-2000 Flashpoints and Fracture Zones, ed. Alan F. Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2010), 29. vii

George Boyce, “Respectable Rebels: Ulster Unionists Resistance to the Third Home Rule Bill, 1912-14, 29. viii

Peter Collins, “1932:A Case-Study in Polarization and Conflict”, in Conflicts In the North of Ireland, 1900-2000 Flashpoints and Fracture Zones, ed. Alan F. Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2010), 100. ix Peter Collins, “1932:A Case-Study in Polarization and Conflict”, 101

x Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology, 3.

xi Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology, 34.

xii Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology, 35.

xiii Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology, 177.

xiv Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology, 138.

xv F.C. McGrath, “Settler Nationalism: Ulster Unionism and Postcolonial Theory”, in Irish Studies & Review Vol 20,

No. 4 (November 2012), 471 xvi

F.C. McGrath, “Settler Nationalism: Ulster Unionism and Postcolonial Theory”, 471 xvii

Eamon Phoenix, “Northern Nationalists in Conflict: from the Third Home Rule Crisis to Partition, 1900-21”, in Peter Collins, “1932:A Case-Study in Polarization and Conflict”, in Conflicts In the North of Ireland, 1900-2000 Flashpoints and Fracture Zones, ed. Alan F. Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2010), 47. xviii

Phoenix, “Northern Nationalists in Conflict: from the Third Home Rule Crisis to Partition, 1900-21”, 50. xix

Dennis Kennedy, “Border Trouble: Unionist Perceptions of and Responses to the Independent Irish State, 1921-39”, in in Conflicts In the North of Ireland, 1900-2000 Flashpoints and Fracture Zones, ed. Alan F. Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2010), 88. xx

Lawrence J. McCaffrey, “Components of Irish Nationalism”, in Perspectives on Irish Nationalism, ed. Thomas E. Hachey & Lawrence J. McCaffrey (University Press of Kentucky, 1989), 16. xxi

McCaffrey, “Components of Irish Nationalism”, in Perspectives on Irish Nationalism, 16. xxii

Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology, 4. xxiii

Thomas More, “The Song of O’Ruark, Prince of Breffni”, (1779-1852), http://www.bartleby.com/270/2/27.html xxiv

The Foggy Dew, http://celtic-lyrics.com/lyrics/201.html xxv

McGrath, “Settler Nationalism: Ulster Unionism and Postcolonial Theory”, 475 xxvi

McGrath, “Settler Nationalism: Ulster Unionism and Postcolonial Theory”, 475-76 xxvii

McGrath, “Settler Nationalism: Ulster Unionism and Postcolonial Theory”, 476

Bibliography:

Michael Hurst, Parnell and Irish Nationalism (University of Toronto Press, Canada, 1968)

Sean Cronin, Irish Nationalism: A History of its Roots and Ideology (Continuum, New York,

1981)

George Boyce, “Respectable Rebels: Ulster Unionists Resistance to the Third Home Rule Bill,

1912-14”, in Conflicts In the North of Ireland, 1900-2000 Flashpoints and Fracture Zones, ed.

Alan F. Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2010)

Peter Collins, “1932:A Case-Study in Polarization and Conflict”, in Conflicts In the North of

Ireland, 1900-2000 Flashpoints and Fracture Zones, ed. Alan F. Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix

(Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2010)

F.C. McGrath, “Settler Nationalism: Ulster Unionism and Postcolonial Theory”, in Irish Studies

& Review Vol 20, No. 4 (November 2012)

Eamon Phoenix, “Northern Nationalists in Conflict: from the Third Home Rule Crisis to

Partition, 1900-21”, in Peter Collins, “1932:A Case-Study in Polarization and Conflict”, in

Conflicts In the North of Ireland, 1900-2000 Flashpoints and Fracture Zones, ed. Alan F.

Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2010)

Dennis Kennedy, “Border Trouble: Unionist Perceptions of and Responses to the Independent

Irish State, 1921-39”, in in Conflicts In the North of Ireland, 1900-2000 Flashpoints and

Fracture Zones, ed. Alan F. Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2010)

Lawrence J. McCaffrey, “Components of Irish Nationalism”, in Perspectives on Irish

Nationalism, ed. Thomas E. Hachey & Lawrence J. McCaffrey (University Press of Kentucky,

1989)

Thomas More, “The Song of O’Ruark, Prince of Breffni”, (1779-1852),

http://www.bartleby.com/270/2/27.html, accessed 4/28/15

The Foggy Dew, http://celtic-lyrics.com/lyrics/201.html, accessed 4/28/15